The Last of Us: The Show!

[El Geet]

20 minutes ago, McFly said:

Wasn't really impressed with ep4. Seemed all a bit obvious. Also I didn't buy that woman in Chicago ( I think) being in charge at all, but i think i recognise her from something else which didnt help, but still couldnt see her as a leader unlike Tess, or the Boston insurgent lady who gave Ellie to Joel and Tess, whom easily could have been in command. There seemed to be loads of pointless swearing too, from Ellie in particular.

 

 

Seemed all a bit obvious but the bit that didn’t you didn’t buy…

[El Geet]

1 hour ago, mexos said:

The quality jumps in this have been pretty wild. I’d give the first 2 episodes barely 2/10, 3 jumps to an outstanding 10 and this was solid but unspectacular 6. Perfectly watchable, if a bit of a filler episode.

Joel as a character is far more interesting once he starts to care for Ellie so I hope to is starts to come through in the coming episodes. 
 

Are they really going to get through all of the first game’s story in one season? Doesn’t feel like it so far. 

2/10? Really? I’m with you that the first two were the weakest but they’re never 2/10 territory. If we’re scoring I’d give the first two a 6, third a 10, fourth a 7. 

[Number 28]

1 hour ago, mexos said:

Joel as a character is far more interesting once he starts to care for Ellie so I hope to is starts to come through in the coming episodes.

I'm just going to spoiler everything. A bit of game stuff below.

Spoiler

See, I always thought the 'giving a shit' part was something that should come much later for Joel, after a prolonged period of keeping his distance due to his suppressed daughter trauma. If he cares straight away then that's his whole character arc gone kaput, surely? I'm not sure how I feel about Joel and Ellie so far, honestly.

 

Also, maybe I'm remembering wrong, but was that a huge pulsating floor? I mean obviously it must be fungus related, but I don't remember anything like that in the games. Is fungus going to start sprouting out of the ground? Will it start causing earthquakes? Very wtf.

 

[makkuwata]

Dave Bautista must be pretty pissed.

[Stevie]

15 minutes ago, makkuwata said:

Dave Bautista must be pretty pissed.

???

[makkuwata]

 

[Stevie]

For a moment I thought you meant he was supposed to play Joel but ended up getting snubbed. 

[Garibaldi]

2 hours ago, Number 28 said:

I'm just going to spoiler everything. A bit of game stuff below.

  Hide contents

Also, maybe I'm remembering wrong, but was that a huge pulsating floor? I mean obviously it must be fungus related, but I don't remember anything like that in the games. Is fungus going to start sprouting out of the ground? Will it start causing earthquakes? Very wtf.

 

Nothing like that in the games, no. After doing some brief reading on Kansas City, my guess would be that..

 

Spoiler

It’s a concentrated growth of cordyceps pushing up through the building’s foundation. Apparently Kansas City has a lot of subterranean features, from natural caves to prohibition passages that are no longer used. Could be that the infected were driven off the city streets but have continued to thrive underground until concentrated ‘pockets’ of them occasionally burst through to the surface. 

 

[Majora]

About the pulsating floor (trailer for episode 5 spoilers)

 

Spoiler

They show the bloater right at the end of the trailer. I'd put money on it bursting out of the floor.

 

[Broker]

15 hours ago, Fry Crayola said:

Some of the blame for that has to go to short attention spans and dopamine cravings, mind you.

It’s interesting, I don’t think you can really judge the quality of something if you sat on your phone and didn’t actually watch it. A lot of things are worse when you’re half listening to them and not looking. If something is trash (sitcoms, reality TV etc) I might just go on my phone. But I’d never sit down to watch a prestige drama, whip my phone out and ignore the show, then go off to tell other people that it was bad. You weren’t watching it.

 

There’s a tonne of subtle, well done character development in Joel and Ellie’s relationship this week. A load of it was conveyed in the ways they looked at each other, moved, responded silently and other non verbal things. If you missed all that because you were on Instagram then yeah, it might feel like a worse show. 

 

11 hours ago, mexos said:

The quality jumps in this have been pretty wild. I’d give the first 2 episodes barely 2/10, 3 jumps to an outstanding 10 and this was solid but unspectacular 6. Perfectly watchable, if a bit of a filler episode.

Joel as a character is far more interesting once he starts to care for Ellie so I hope to is starts to come through in the coming episodes. 
 

Are they really going to get through all of the first game’s story in one season? Doesn’t feel like it so far. 

 

Spoiler

Henry and Sam next episode, an episode for Tommy, an episode for Joel to get injured and maybe a left behind flashback, two episodes for winter and the cannibals, one for the finale at the firefly base. Seems about right. 

 

[makkuwata]

11 hours ago, Broker said:

There’s a tonne of subtle, well done character development in Joel and Ellie’s relationship this week. A load of it was conveyed in the ways they looked at each other, moved, responded silently and other non verbal things. If you missed all that because you were on Instagram then yeah, it might feel like a worse show. 

 

Picked up on a couple of things I hadn’t considered watching this.
 

[Rorschach]

19 hours ago, Garibaldi said:

First time it's felt like changes to the game were missteps rather than the shrewd decisions they've been thusfar.

 

  Hide contents

I don't think humanising the raiders was a good idea. Rather than being the most ruthless arseholes who've survived the downfall of a QZ, they just seem like a load of empty, aimless people being manipulated by a leader with a grudge. More complex, sure, but that isn't always better as it just robs them of any sense of threat. The scene where they gather to mourn their dead then drive off in vehicles graffitied with bullshit bravado was probably intended to show the contrast of what they are vs what they're trying to be, but that didn't make it any less jarring.

 

Still, there were some nice character moments between Joel and Ellie, but so far it was definitely the weakest episode for me.

 

Feels like we're seeing them in an earlier stage of their slide into inhumanity than they were in the game. In the game you can tell the story of their history through environmental detail, notes that have been left around. My guess is they want to show it as it's happening in real time.

[yakumo]

They did the magazine bit😁

 

Ellie is easily the best part of this show.

[Uncle Nasty]

6 hours ago, Broker said:

It’s interesting, I don’t think you can really judge the quality of something if you sat on your phone and didn’t actually watch it. A lot of things are worse when you’re half listening to them and not looking. If something is trash (sitcoms, reality TV etc) I might just go on my phone. But I’d never sit down to watch a prestige drama, whip my phone out and ignore the show, then go off to tell other people that it was bad. You weren’t watching it.

 

There’s a tonne of subtle, well done character development in Joel and Ellie’s relationship this week. A load of it was conveyed in the ways they looked at each other, moved, responded silently and other non verbal things. If you missed all that because you were on Instagram then yeah, it might feel like a worse show.

 

For the record I'm watching it on a 77" home theatre setup so I don't think it's that.

 

Northing wrong with watching anything on a phone or tablet though. If it was good enough to hold your attention then surely instagram wouldn't distract you. I wouldn't say anyone's ability to judge this or any show would be impaired because of the size of the display they watched it on. Watching on an iPhone with airpods can be a great experience.

 

I see this a lot on music forums where someone has recorded a concert on a phone and the band blatantly sounds like shit. People will defend that by saying you cant judge a performance based on an iPhone recording, when it's perfectly obvious if someone is out of tune, flubbed a solo or forgot the words, whether it's proshot or on a phone.

 

Would you say that "You weren’t watching it" if someone posted that The Last Of Us was the best thing they'd ever seen after they watched it on their iPhone? No. Silly thing to say.

[SpagMasterSwift]

Thats not what they said tho...maybe you misunderstood as you were on your phone?

[LaveDisco]

20 hours ago, makkuwata said:

 

That looks like an SNL sketch. 

[sofasurfer]

Spoilers for the remaining episode titles 

Spoiler

 

 

Looking forward to episode 7, although the bigots may be out in force again.

 

 

[IcEBuRN]

Sorry for jumping in the thread at the end, I don't want to browse it through for risk of spoilzz. 

 

I was going to give this a miss, as I have no knowledge of the games. But, this is getting mentioned (good or bad I don't know) everywhere, and with a ridiculous 9.2 on IMDB has got my attention.

 

I'm assuming with that score, it's still good for someone who's not touched the series before?

[makkuwata]

15 minutes ago, IcEBuRN said:

Sorry for jumping in the thread at the end, I don't want to browse it through for risk of spoilzz. 

 

I was going to give this a miss, as I have no knowledge of the games. But, this is getting mentioned (good or bad I don't know) everywhere, and with a ridiculous 9.2 on IMDB has got my attention.

 

I'm assuming with that score, it's still good for someone who's not touched the series before?

If you want to watch it to join the water cooler you can’t go wrong watching the first 3 episodes. Whatever you think of the show at that point the third episode stands alone and is the source of all the buzz.

[Darren]

19 minutes ago, IcEBuRN said:

Sorry for jumping in the thread at the end, I don't want to browse it through for risk of spoilzz. 

 

I was going to give this a miss, as I have no knowledge of the games. But, this is getting mentioned (good or bad I don't know) everywhere, and with a ridiculous 9.2 on IMDB has got my attention.

 

I'm assuming with that score, it's still good for someone who's not touched the series before?

 

I've also never played the games and I'm absolutely loving it, possibly even more than the game folks who are constantly noticing what's the same or changed. It's all new to me and all the better for it.

[p1nseeker]

6 hours ago, sofasurfer said:

Spoilers for the remaining episode titles 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Looking forward to episode 7, although the bigots may be out in force again.

 

 

 

Episode 8 could end up a little rushed? kinda wish the series was a couple of episodes longer looking at that.

[sofasurfer]

43 minutes ago, p1nseeker said:

 

Episode 8 could end up a little rushed? kinda wish the series was a couple of episodes longer looking at that.

The remaining episodes are all just under an hour long with the finale being a whopping 43 minutes. With the amount of story left to tell they could have easily increased the episode's lengths and it wouldn't drag.

[Davros sock drawer]

1 hour ago, Darren said:

 

I've also never played the games and I'm absolutely loving it, possibly even more than the game folks who are constantly noticing what's the same or changed. It's all new to me and all the better for it.

 

I've played the first game and I'm loving this. 

[Commander Jameson]

1 hour ago, Darren said:

 

I've also never played the games and I'm absolutely loving it, possibly even more than the game folks who are constantly noticing what's the same or changed. It's all new to me and all the better for it.

 

Same here. Very much enjoying it and looking forward to seeing where it goes.

[IcEBuRN]

Damn, just checked the schedule.

 

Hmm, as I'm not invested yet, I'll wait and binge them all!

[Majora]

I think episode 8 should be fine to cover those events from the game

 

Spoiler

Remember that even though Episode 7 is called Left Behind, it probably won't focus entirely on Ellie and Riley. The DLC was flashbacks of Ellie and Riley in between Ellie looking after Joel in winter. I'd assume episode 7 would do the same, leaving episode 8 to deal specifically with David and his gang.

 

I haven't played the original since the PS4 remaster came out so correct me if I'm wrong, but is there really that much story with David that couldn't be told in an hour long episode? My main memory of that part in the main game is Ellie being kidnapped, some cutscenes of her being harassed by David, Joel fighting his way through a small army, torturing some guy to find out David's location, then Ellie's boss fight with David. It doesn't strike me as so narrative heavy you couldn't flesh it our decently and cover it in an hour, especially given how reduced the combat encounters are in the show vs the game.

 

[p1nseeker]

All good points, you may well be right. That bit of the game is not so clear in my memory!

[Timmo]

On 07/02/2023 at 09:54, Kevvy Metal said:

Boggles the mind that someone could come away from those 4 episodes with a negative take. 

 

This thread is a fucking disaster. This is a brilliant show and I can't wait to blub like a fool as their relationship develops.

[glb]

Played both games, enjoyed them, and I’m loving this adaptation so far. I like the changes for TV, and given they’ve been written by the guy responsibly for Chernobyl have complete faith the show will stick the weighter moments (it has so far)

 

Can understand some of the frustrations with pacing because the agency in the game isn’t present in television shows, and the experience is much more passive. But think PP and BR are really great as Joel and Ellie, with their shared charm doing enough to draw emotion in the way that is really engaging.

 

Spoiler

Felt the joke book felt natural rather than a really jarring nod to the games, so too the porn mag scene. Chernobyl had some brilliant moments of levity amid the bleakness and while this isn’t as heavyweight as that, the tonal balance has felt spot on so far.

 

Plus episode three was one of the best hours or so of television I’ve seen in ages. Note perfect throughout. If that ep doesn’t win a heap of awards we’re being spoilt by something really special elsewhere (probably Succession)

[spork]

When’s the next episode available? I thought I’d read it was going to be today because of the Super Bowl!